back to article Apple web design violates law, claims blind person

Apple, which prides itself on design, faces a lawsuit alleging that its web page layout violates the law. In a complaint filed on Sunday in a Manhattan district court, plaintiff Himelda Mendez claims that Apple's website, by virtue of its availability in Apple Stores, violates Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act ( …

  1. Shadow Systems

    To put it mildly.

    So much of the Apple site is useless to a screen reader that it's a miracle I can interact with it at all.

    I was trying to browse desktop systems to get an idea what kind would be best for my needs, but I ended up having to call them & talk to a CSR to describe everything instead. "You know we have a website for this, right?" Yes, but it plays merry hell with my screen reader & forced me to make this call. "Oh, well... Ok, I'll be happy to assist you..." Yeah, now that you know that if you don't I'll vote with my wallet & go somewhere else.

    I've been told that the Apple screen reader can read their site just fine, but that does this Windows user no damned good. I need an Apple for the screen reader that would properly read the Apple site to me? I can't use the site to find out which Apple computer might be right for me unless/until I get an Apple computer with which to do it. Catch 22, meet recursion. Bah.

    I don't blame the lady for filing the suit, I'm simply surprised it took so long.

    To the law makers that want to restrict folks from filing ADA cases against companies for not being ADA compliant, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. It's already the law, they're required to obey it. If they fail to do so then we can file suit to force them to obey the law.

    1. kain preacher

      Re: To put it mildly.

      "I've been told that the Apple screen reader can read their site just fine"

      Provided you use safari to browser the site

    2. Joe W Silver badge

      Re: To put it mildly.

      I always wonder about this. I used to use lynx every now and then to just get to the information on a website or as the logon tool for wifi networks. This used to be possible, even before accessibility rules were introduced (except for those flash-based websites...). Nowadays everything is danamic, there is a f'ton of Javascript executed to put stuff together, and even if the general content can be read links usually cannot be identified. Especially those that you need to log in to a public wifi network (like at airports).

      Having been in charge of a website (long ago...): we actually had the edict from above that it has to be accessible. But then we did write the html code by hand. (Not much changing content, so quite feasible in that case)

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: To put it mildly.

        @Joe W

        my first thought on reading the article was, that the web designers should be forced to view the page with Lynx, before releasing pages.

    3. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: To put it mildly.

      "I can't use the site to find out which Apple computer might be right for me unless/until I get an Apple computer with which to do it. Catch 22, meet recursion. Bah."

      Maybe, perhaps, Apple was telling you which machine would be suitable for you.......none of them....?

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: To put it mildly.

        @ Shadow Systems

        Even for a person with normal sight, the Apple website isn't the most efficient place to compare Apple products. There's lots of scrolling through pictures to just to find a link to Technical Specifications.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: To put it mildly.

          I can't comment on Apple's site as I've never visited but about 12 years ago when I was building more sites I tried to make them accessible for those with eyesight problems.

          The problem I found at that time was that the readers I looked at all worked differently and it was hard to get something which worked for all. I've no idea if the W3C standard has solved this but I have some doubts.

          In then end I made a link for those who were using readers which gave a text oriented version of the page which seemed to work with most readers and gave me the opportunity to give a lot more information than simply adding descriptions behind images.

          1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

            Re: To put it mildly.

            The problem I found at that time was that the readers I looked at all worked differently

            Largely because they were chasing different goalposts.

            Particularly since HTML5, it's become a lot easier to use decent semantics in the HTML, such as the navigation tag, which suits both developers and users. Done correctly this largely obviates the need for the committee-driven WCAG stuff, though you still need to pay attention to colour schemes.

            As Bruce Lawson likes to champion accessibility is usability.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: To put it mildly.

            I can't comment on Apple's site as I've never visited but about 12 years ago when I was building more sites I tried to make them accessible for those with eyesight problems.

            That's actually the problem with many "modern" web sites - they're great on a phone, but on a desktop monitor looks like they were designed for visually impaired people, with excessive white space, huge fonts, and graphics visible about thirty feet away.

        2. Tigra 07
          Facepalm

          Re: To put it mildly.

          That's your problem Dave. Apple customers aren't supposed to look at or care about the specs. Ooh it's NEW, it's SHINY, it has the APPLE logo on the back. BUY IT. BUY IT NOW! Take out a loan! Sell everything to buy it! It's the best thing ever! Revolutionary!

          1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

            Re: To put it mildly.

            It's the best thing ever! Revolutionary!

            You forgot magical: buying an Apple product might even cure blindness along with cancer and bringing about world peace.

        3. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: To put it mildly.

          "Even for a person with normal sight, the Apple website isn't the most efficient place to compare Apple products"

          Ack. And these so-called "modern design" web sites have color combinations (light blue on bright white, for example) that are HARD ON THE EYES.

          yeah, how about [*joke*] considering "old eyes" a DISABILITY so we can SUE them into compliance! I bet the millenial SJW's would spin in place over not being able to take sides... like a permanently unresolved quantum state or something.

          /me ponders new energy resource - spinning millenial SJW's - now how to collect and put it on the power grid...

        4. Shadow Systems

          At Dave 126, re: pictures.

          Peecturez? Weee don' NEEED no steenkeeeeng peeecturez!</Snark> =-)p

          That's one of the (very rare) things that's good about being blind, I save a gigaton of bandwidth by having my browser set to never download them at all. If there's no AltText associated with the picture, then my 'reader has nothing to read & I couldn't interact with the stupid picture anyway. *Sigh*

          Ban photography! Pictures are Evil! Scrapings from Satan's scrotum! Ban them, Ban them all! </Pantless Git>...

    4. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker
      Pint

      Re: To put it mildly.

      Shadow Systems:

      I fully expected you to comment, and not surprised you were the first. However, I am disappointed that you were not the subject of the article itself! What better press to cover you than El Reg?

      I raise my glass to you anyway; it's a beer icon if your SRE doesn't catch those. Cheers.

      1. Shadow Systems

        At My other car WAS an IAV Stryker...

        I lucked out that I got first post, but I can explain why I wasn't the person from the article.

        There are Geneva Convention laws against me appearing in print "to protect global sanity".

        Bah. Sanity (and pants!) is overrated.

        No more sanity nor pants!

        Dried frog pills for everyone!

        *Cough*

        Thanks for the pint.

        I'll take your word that it's a beer, I can't see if the publican is handing me a frothy tankard of rancid goat-milk pudding...

        Not that either the smell or taste would be a clue.

        (Beer is nasty. What more proof of my insanity do you need?) =-D

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: To put it mildly. so who is at fault

      So it it works fine on Apple software, why are you saying it is Apples fault and not Microsoft?

    6. Velv

      Re: To put it mildly.

      “ignorance of the law is not an excuse. “

      While I can agree this should be the case for many of the larger companies who have a development team, there are a substantial number of small businesses who have websites produced by individuals or friends. Now while those “developers” should know the law, many are self taught and haven’t had the benefit of ethics and inclusion training, so I can understand giving the website owner and developer the opportunity to be educated and put things right.

      1. Shadow Systems

        At Velv, re: site accessibility.

        The W3C has an accessibility checker that is free to run across your site to find any improvements that can be made to make a site more compliant. It doesn't matter if the company is a tiny Mom&Pop or a ginormous multinational, the tool is free to use & the results free to follow.

        I am not disputing your position, I think small Mom&Pop sites should get one free pass to "fix our foul up" via the checker before a lawsuit takes place, but there has to be a point at which the "free passes" get cut off & the legal actions begin. A Mom&Pop might get away with "we didn't know there was a free tool to use - if you tell us where it is we'll fix the site", but the big corps should get no such thing. The Mom&Pop can't afford to hire the legal team to make sure the site dots all the i's & crosses all the t's, but the corporations can afford it in spades.

        A physical Mom&Pop store should enjoy the same "one time free pass" to have an accessibility check & report generated on what fixes need doing, so they can get free legal advice on how to CYA. But the big corps should get no such thing since they're more than able to afford the legal teams to do such a check on every property they own.

        Enjoy a pint on me, it'll lubricate your throat & leave you a nice sturdy tankard in hand with which to bludgeon anyone that tries to steal your munchies. =-)p

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: To put it mildly.

        "the benefit of ethics and inclusion training" - are you sane?

        "opportunity to be educated and put things right" - Oh ffs sakes no you're not.

        You fully cucked Libtard!

        You can bubble wrap the world, stop it already.

        There are disadvantages to loosing your sight, period.

        If we had to change every line of code to accommodate everyone we'd never get anywhere.

        Stop thinking the sueball fixes anything...

        Improvise. Adapt. Overcome!

    7. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

      Re: To put it mildly.

      So much of the Apple site is useless to a screen reader

      There, fixed that for you ;-)

      Apple's site epitomises the modern disease of form over function - the designer really doesn't care about function as long as it looks pretty. As said, small light grey text on white background might "look pretty" but is a lot harder to read than block on white in a sensible font and size.

      And don't get me started on things like the *.gov.uk site where the pretifiers have taken over the asylum. Sites where the content used to fit easily on the screen now have huge graphics and acres of empty space so you have to scroll and scroll and scroll to read them.

    8. geekguy

      Re: Good.

      to be fair not having alt tags is inexcusable in this day and age.

  2. Malcolm Weir Silver badge

    The reality is that HR 620 is specifically designed to weaken the ADA (see e.g. https://www.aclu.org/other/hr-620-myths-and-truths-about-ada-education-and-reform-act and others), which is why Senator Duckworth is rallying the opposition to this effort to gut the law.

    In this particular case, if the changes under the ADA Castration and Business Discrimination Enabling Act (as HR 620 should be called) were enacted, the process would be:

    (1) Complainant sends a written notice to Violator "clearly identifying" the problem. Included in this has to be detailed circumstances describing the barrier (to public a accommodation), including the physical address of the property(!) and whether or not a request was made for assistance and whether the issue was permanent or temporary.

    (2) Violator has 60 days to send a response describing what they propose to do about it.

    (3) Violator now has 60 days to implement their description of whatever they proposed, unless there are "circumstances beyond their control" which allows them to just show progress.

    (4) Complainant may now (120 days later) try again. In theory, if "the barrier" is still present and "the same", Complainant can now file suit against Violator. However, if the Violator just rearranged the deckchairs (as it were) the specific details of the barrier would be different, so it's back to step 1.

    (5) Having filed suit, the legal wheels start turning, slowly. Typically, at this stage, whatever the barrier happens to be gets addressed and the suit is dismissed as moot before anyone actually gets into a courtroom.... but this time the proposed solution has to be agreed by both sides. Note that no-one really wants to get into court, as there's no money available in most cases.... so the only costs are those needed to pay your own lawyers.

    Under the old system, you start at step 5.

    The "problem" is that there have been (a few) law firms that have gone around looking for ADA violations and suing the violators, offering to settle for $$$s and addressing the issue, usually with the aid of a possibly-related compliance monitoring company. These scummy law firms use the fact that (for them) the cost is negligible to prosecute the suit, but for the defendant/violator it's expensive, so they can refuse to settle until offered sufficiently juicy "go away" money. Note the ADA has nothing to do with this: plenty of scumbags operate by suing for "go away" cash under many different laws and legal principles (e.g. many slip-and-fall cases, for example).

    1. Charles 9

      But doesn't that run the risk of the defendant "calling the bluff" and letting the case go to court with the hopes of getting it dismissed and setting a precedent, especially if they see MULTIPLE suits on the horizon?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ..well in Cal about 90% of ADA lawsuits are straight scams

      Not sure about at the Fed level but since they made if so easy to file ADA lawsuits in California about two decades ago at least 90% of the ADA lawsuits filed in California have been straight up legal frauds. Here in Northern California its a long time since I can remember a legitimate or reasonable case being filed under ADA but whenever you start digging into background of ADA cases that have been filed and reported in the media you find the same names and legal firms. Pulling the same scam.

      A few years ago a whole bunch of small businesses in San Francisco were legally extorted of non trivial sums of money, one went out of business, through ADA lawsuits brought by one lawyer from Marin and his "disabled" accomplice. Straight up fraud.

      Nothing is done about this egregious abuse because the various special interest pressure groups are loath to admit that maybe they might be wrong. Or simply accepts, that guess what, you are crippled in one way another and the whole world cannot be reconfigured to fit your condition. I say that as someone who under California utterly bizarre laws and regs would be classified as "disabled". Not that it has made any real difference to my life. One just adjusts to reality of the situation, not go around demanding laws that just enable scumbag lawyers to file extortion lawsuits. Which is what ADA has actually turned into.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: ..well in Cal about 90% of ADA lawsuits are straight scams

        Agreed.

        There was a case (can't find the link) where a Restaurant was sued because their disabled parking bay was 1cm too small. The costs crippled the business and it closed down. The Plaintifs cheered. There are activists who want businesses to spend huge amounts of money providing facilities for people who would never visit the premises.

        In another case, a business was sued because the premises was not accessible to wheelchair users.

        Well, it was on the top floor. The building was of historic interest and the local planners would not allow a lift to be installed. The Business had tried to get one but was refused but that didn't matter in law. They lost the court case and closed down due to the legal bills.

        Madness.

        Only a matter of time before we get those sharks operating here. Make sure that your parking spaces are bigger than the legal minimum, your Toilet Doors wider, etc etc etc

        And don't forget your website. There will be people crawling all over it to make cure that it is compliant. If it isn't, they'll sue first and wait for the money to roll in. PErhaps this is where all the PPI claims companies will head for next?

        /s /s /s

        Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the work done to make life easier for disabled people. Most of the disabled are pretty flexible and a 1cm reduction in a parking space would be irrelevant to them. It would just not be important.

        It is the people who go out of their way to be self-appointed guardians of the disabled that get my goat.

      2. BinkyTheHorse
        Unhappy

        Re: ..well in Cal about 90% of ADA lawsuits are straight scams

        "Nothing is done about this egregious abuse because the various special interest pressure groups are loath to admit that maybe they might be wrong.[...]"

        "Nothing"? I beg to differ. How about assigning the task of monitoring compliance to at least a state-level government agency? Like it's done with other health, safety, and sanitary issues I presume? Sure, it's not perfect, it's prone to inefficiency and corruption - but it's better IMO than leaving people with special needs being essentially unable to improve their situation.

        In my mind, the current approach of offloading the responsibility to act on disabled people, due to the actions of some bad apples, sounds like a hilariously grim combination of private law enforcement and Stalinist group responsibility.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: ..well in Cal about 90% of ADA lawsuits are straight scams

          Great, a state level compliance agency. You mean like like the idiots at CARB or CAL EPA. Whose institutional incompetence , corruption and stupidity is legendary.

          This is how completely bloody stupid ADA is. For almost the last 20 years the City of San Francisco has no official designated emergency evacuation centers for the 10%/20% of the population who will be left homeless after the next major earthquake (we were very very lucky in 1989..). Until the early 2000's the City had a list of evacuation centers, I knew where my closest ones where, but when the City was updating the Emergency Plan back then the Disability Commissioner for the City (a total jobsworth zealot) vetoed the list because only one of the twenty main evacuation centers even partially complied with ADA. So no more public lists. Last time I checked there is still no proper evacuation center plans, just lots of ADA compliance verbiage in the emergency plan.

          During this whole fiasco no one was willing to point out to the ADA enforcement idiots that in a major earthquake, with tens of thousands of people injured and under rubble, the people covered by ADA will be at the very bottom of all triage lists. Brutal but true. Thats how major natural disasters work. The probability of the very small percentage of the population that are actually disabled surviving is much lower than the general population. They are a very bad return on use of very limited emergency response resources in a disaster.

          But because of the stupidity of ADA a very important component of the disaster response plan for the vast majority of the population of the City has been seriously impacted by the shrill complaints of the very vocal minority of "Disability Activists"

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: ..well in Cal about 90% of ADA lawsuits are straight scams

        "guess what, you are crippled in one way another and the whole world cannot be reconfigured to fit your condition"

        Many things which can be done in the name of "accessibility" make life better for fully-abled (or more realistically, "termporily-abled") people. For example, structuring sites so that screen readers can read them efficiently means that fully-sighted people can use screen-readers to read them quickly (it's not uncommon to up the speed on them to 400 words/minute - higher than the average reading speed), using appropriate amounts of contrast (i.e. not silver-on-white) and visual identity (e.g. buttons, obvious links) means I can actually find buttons, links, and small text, and "accesible views" are generally less cluttered and easier to read. Don't get me started on the standard UK 8' wide parking bays, giving you under 2' in which to get your door open, and try to squeeze out without scratching the neighbouring vehicle (remember: that 2' includes your door's internal trim!).

        1. Alien8n

          Re: ..well in Cal about 90% of ADA lawsuits are straight scams

          "Don't get me started on the standard UK 8' wide parking bays"

          2' gap to open your car door? Sounds like luxury, Our local supermarket's bays are so narrow it's physically impossible for larger vehicles to park legally (by which I mean of the former agricultural type now commonly owned and driven by the wives of wealthy businessmen). You get a normal sized saloon car in both bays to the sides and you're lucky to have a foot of space to open the door in.

          1. Dazed and Confused

            Re: ..well in Cal about 90% of ADA lawsuits are straight scams

            Our local supermarket's bays are so narrow it's physically impossible for larger vehicles to park legally (by which I mean of the former agricultural type now commonly owned and driven by the wives of wealthy businessmen).

            There needs to be a law that if the vehicle doesn't fit in the bay then it can't be parked.

            When I used to visit the US frequently it was common to find that there was parking for "compact" cars near the mall and larger spaces further away. If the chelsea tractors had to park 1/4 mile away then they'd probably be a lot less popular.

            1. Alien8n

              Re: ..well in Cal about 90% of ADA lawsuits are straight scams

              Sounds like an idea, however first they should make it enforceable for disabled and child parking spaces, as currently I see them parking in these spaces all the time due to the extra space so they don't "scratch their car" getting in and out.

              And don't get me started on disabled parking either, my wife has MS but because she can walk short distances with a stick she doesn't get the mobility payment and so can't have a blue badge. And yet we always see other people who are clearly more mobile parking in these spaces with a badge.

              1. tiggity Silver badge

                Re: ..well in Cal about 90% of ADA lawsuits are straight scams

                Sounds like they are being very dubious on their blue badge assessment . I have relative who has mobility issues and they got a blue badge easily (which I use when driving them somewhere - illness means they cannot drive any more).

                Always worth recording the assessment and then comparing it to the "points system" that dictate if you qualify (same for PIP etc.)

                1. Alien8n

                  Re: ..well in Cal about 90% of ADA lawsuits are straight scams

                  @tiggity Our council gives badges based on the PIP level, no mobility payment no badge. Which is frustrating if we go anywhere and expect to spend any time as we need the wheelchair. But as she can walk with a stick for short distances she only gets the living component. not the mobility payment, and therefore no badge.

    3. Fatman

      RE: "go away" money

      <quote>... so they can refuse to settle until offered sufficiently juicy "go away" money.</quote>

      Do you mean like these scumbags???

      https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/20/prenda_lawyer_guilty/

      And look what has happened to them. (I hope that son of a bitch gets a lot of jail time.)

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple just need to register in the uk.

    Plenty of .co.uk sites that are equally inaccessible too. Only in the UK there's **** all anyone can do about it. We don't really do enforcement.

  4. Dave 126 Silver badge

    Side note:

    https://www.rnib.org.uk/information-everyday-living-using-technology-phones/mobile-phones

    The Royal National Institute for the Blind is still mentioning Android phones with trackballs (I haven't seen one if those for a while), Symbian phones and Windows 8 phones - of the latter noting that whilst there's currently no text to speech app available yet, they expect this to change soon.

    It appears the advice hasn't been updated since the iPhone 5S. Mention is made of Siri, no mention of voice assistants from Google or Amazon, or, thankfully, Bixby.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Side note:

      >The Royal National Institute for the Blind is still mentioning Android phones with trackballs

      Mostly because it's an edge user case (maybe 10% or so). While it's not remotely an excuse to fail those who do, the vast majority of blind people do not use expert systems (and they very much are) like screenreaders.

      75%+ blind people lost their sight around or beyond retirement - case studies of elders getting to grips with AT are everywhere, but it's misleading and again the vast majority do not - effort:reward is very high. Most life changing tech and essential support dealt out by RNIB is rather more mundane.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why is this even a thing? It's 2018 for the love of dog, all websites should be available to every one regardless of disability and corporations should be doing their best to make it happen.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why is this even a thing?

      Because accessibility is invariably an afterthought - when it costs. Built it in from scratch, and it's free.

      I'm not a big one for regulations everywhere. But it should be possible with some imagination to require websites that offer some sort of functionality to the public (or anyone, really. Employees are people to) to demonstrate "reasonable adjustment" from design onwards. That document would be their defence if someone were to start an action under a yet-to-be-drafted equal-access law.

      Ultimately, nature will decide. As the demographics of society shift, and the bulk of monied people become older and older, websites that accommodate them will do better than ones that don't.

    2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Because, perhaps inevitably but still disappointingly for a company that produces a web browser, Apple's website looks like it was produced by an ad agency with no input at all from the techies. It's all about photos of its products.

  6. find users who cut cat tail

    As if it was not enough that many sites do not render reasonably to text -- what you get if you can see? Tiny grey text on a bit lighter background. After you scroll through pages of pointless huge images.

    After writing this I checked Apple's website (didn't know what it looks like). And guess what I found there?

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      To be fair (yes, sorry), I've seen far worse than apple.com. A standard, and easy trick, is to disable all images and to disable all styles. If the website is not usable at this point then it's a straight accessibility failure. Idiotic and needless reliance on JavaScript, usually duplicating standard browse functionality, is another issue. For example, HTML forms entirely broken to require JavaScript events to submit rather than having a submit button.

      There are obvious link issues, with the odd empty link and a few rammed together but not the worst by a long way.

      This no-CSS and no-Image view is also pretty much what a search indexer will see therefore get this right and your SEO is much of the way there. Accessibility and SEO go hand in hand.

  7. Roopee Bronze badge
    Joke

    Blind have no business in an Apple Store...

    Clearly they are wasting their time in a shop/site where everything is about how it looks, so Apple has no reason to make any concessions to people who can't see the products!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

    There are very few sites that provide WCAG Level AA conformance. They simply use too much Javascript and lack the tags.

    Don't even get me started on colour schemes for Colour blindness.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

      Makes you wonder, though, how you can maintain accessibility for a website whose content is inherently dynamic and therefore can't rely on static formats or even server-side scripting (because the content could update too quickly--think a hot eBay auction). I mean, can AJAX be made screenreader-compatible?

      1. Nick Kew

        @Charles 9 - Dynamic content is inherently easy. You build accessibility into the content generation software.

        @Various commentards - Accessibility is designed right in to HTML, and is much cheaper and easier to get right than to screw up 1998-deezyner or modern-deezyner style. The situation is not remotely comparable to the compromises that sometimes have to be made in the physical world.

        1. Charles 9

          So how does a screenreader react when content it read once (read: somewhere in the middle) changes?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            >So how does a screenreader react when content it read once (read: somewhere in the middle) changes?

            If the developer has defined a Live Region (WAI-ARIA), the screenreader is relatively modern and the blind user knows how to use it, no problem. Each of those ifs are in practice pretty big - but there's no harm and not that much work in assuming the best case.

  9. Nick Kew
    Pint

    2000 Sydney Olympics

    Is this universally known, or should the article have mentioned it?

    A famous precedent here is Bruce Maguire, the blind man who successfully sued the Sydney Olympics and IBM over the inaccessibility of the Olympics website and was awarded $20k compensation.

  10. d3vy

    He's looking at it wrong.

  11. bobkolker

    Since when is a private firm producing goods and services for the commercial market required to produce items for disabled people? I can see where this may be profitable or may be an act of charity, but to be obliged by law? This smacks of involuntary servitude. Apple produces goods and service in the marketplace to make a profit. Apple does not exist for the benefit of disabled people.

    It is one thing to demand accessibility for things in the public domain, normally provided by government at taxpayer expense. It is another thing to impose such duties on a private vendor.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Last time I checked, apple.com was in a public domain, as it's a website on The Internet.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Apple.com is not a public domain. It is a company owned by its shareholders the OP was making the point that it should be a business decision if it wants to spend money to attract blind customers.

        The claim was that it was accessible to Apple's own screen reader - but not competing products.

        1. Charles 9

          One, Apple's clientele is the general public, not a club. Two, Apple is publicly traded. That's two strikes against Apple being able to do what it wants. Companies that cater to the general public cannot exclude people, intentionally or not, without legal reason (eg. a restraining order). That's why things like the Americans with Disabilities Act which requires stores and other public-serving facilities to accommodate people who can't do business otherwise. It could easily be applied to virtual locations like the Web as well.

    2. Mark 110

      "Apple does not exist for the benefit of disabled people."

      Yes it does, the law says so. The law says that commercial properties (in this case a website) should be accessible to disabled people (in this case a blind person).

      This law applies to all businesses.

    3. Malcolm Weir Silver badge

      Since July 26, 1990.

      What, precisely, entitles a "private firm" to enter the public marketplace?

      There is no automatic entitlement, rather there are a series of obligations that must be met: business license -- a formal record of who the owners are --, a tax ID, and, oh look, a requirement that the business must be available to disabled people.

      Feel free to dislike it if you are that much of a a*le (that's a regex "*"), but society as a whole has decided your preferences aren't going to prevail.

    4. Nick Kew

      Since when is a private firm producing goods and services for the commercial market required to produce items for disabled people?

      You could reformulate that in a more historic context. For example, "No blacks, no dogs, no irish". Or if you're not familiar with British history of about the 1950s, substitute your own example, perhaps involving another group like Jews or Mexicans.

      This is just one of many anti-discrimination laws. We may argue at length over details, but I think most of us firmly support at least the basic principle, don't we?

      (Besides, this isn't about Apple's products, it's their website that's the issue).

  12. Paul Cooper
    Boffin

    Map and Goegraphic Information sites?

    We had to think about accessibility when considering the sites we developed to display interactive maps, and took advice on it. Under UK law, there's a reasonability clause, so we could develop sites that were unusable for blind people, as long as any FUNCTIONALITY was duplicated in a text readable form. So, for example, if we'd provided directions, they had to be in text form as well as a line on the map. However, as we didn't provide anything of that kind, and as the data that was displayed was downloadable in standard database formats, there was no onus on us to make the basically inaccessible data accessible!

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Map and Goegraphic Information sites?

      Youtube presumably faces a similar problem.

      You could implement a H265-speech converter: "red green,green,blue........ HSYNC, red,red,......"

  13. 89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921

    Beware! Central Serous Retinopathy is an epidemic among IT workers. Long hours of staring at bright screens every day could eventually lead to you needing devices used by the blind, particularly if it doesn't resolve quickly (mine hasn't) and especially in old age.

  14. andy 103
    Stop

    Sorry to play devils advocate, but what's the chances this person would complain if the same issue was on Joe Public's website? Presumably the fact they could potentially make money out of this in the form of compensation is more valuable to them than whatever they were trying to do via the website in the first place.

    1. Charles 9

      He could complain, but remedies would be more limited. Joe Public probably isn't an e-tailer and would be less likely to have "complicated" content. A sustained complaint to a Joe Public website would probably be more in the nature of "straighten out your text and tag your pictures".

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. karlkarl Silver badge

    Join the club

    I have pretty decent eyesight but still can't really use "modern" websites like Apple's.

    The Javascript is too slow and bloated and because fonts on Linux are a tad different to MS and Apple, everything is often broken.

    CSS fails. Tables just work. Check out http://www.openbsd.org. Not pretty but works. Thats all I care about.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  17. AlternativeFact

    Image problem

    Having produced websites and studied the accessibility question I would make the following general points.

    1. Accessibility guidelines are framed in terms of standards compliance, not support for particular hardware or software.

    2. Most of Apple's pages I have looked at use background images, where it is not technically possible to give alt tags.

    3. The standards advice is not to give meaningless alt tags like "apple logo" or even "picture of iPad". Blind users don't like them (they slow them down) and gain nothing from them. If the specs of a Mac are described in the text, there is no need to describe the pic.

    4. To conform with accessibility when one is marking up images that don't need a verbal description, alt= "" is what is recommended as it is ignored by screen readers but passes standards test.

    Of course, whether Apple's site is good or bad, and whether the case has any merit in US law is another matter. But it isn't quite as simple as some would suppose.

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